You are here

Good Samaritan returns wallet full of cash

John Stocks, an Auburn attorney attending a legal seminar in Ocean Shores last Saturday, thought he’d sneak away for a bit and come into Aberdeen to play some poker.

How his luck was at the table isn’t clear, but afterward it got lousy; then it got great.

Stocks lost his wallet, with several hundred dollars and several credit cards inside. The lucky part is that 19-year-old Catherine Dossett, a 2011 Harbor High School graduate, found it, then spent the next couple hours on the Internet tracking him down to return it.

Stocks said he first thought it had been stolen in the bar he’d been in and reported it to police, who weren’t optimistic he’d find it again.

“After cancelling the credit cards and crying for two hours, I checked my phone and there was an email saying, ‘lost wallet’ in the subject line,” Stock said.

Dossett, the daughter of Robert and Brandy Dossett, had been driving down Wishkah Street with her sister Saturday evening and spotted a wallet on the sidewalk. They stopped and found Stocks’ wallet with $580 and four credit cards, Dossett said.

They were on their way to Dossett’s house where a large group of friends was gathering for a game night party. She said she came through the door and said to her parents, “Why did you raise me right?” Then she started trying to find the wallet’s owner. She found Stocks’ Bar Association card and looked him up on the Internet. She called his office and left a message, then called the AAA auto club and asked them to call him and eventually found an email address for him.

Stocks drove in from Ocean Shores to pick up his wallet and waded into the game night crowd. He asked her and the others what a fair reward would be and when Brandy said she didn’t need a reward, he gave her $200.

“I then hugged her and thought about all the times I found a wallet and did the right thing,” Stocks said. “People are still good, even the 19-year-old ones. I have a friend for life.

“… The conduct of this 19-year-old restored my trust in our youth and in Aberdeen, a great city and a great community, for the most part,” Stocks said.